LegalZoom has a generous professional education budget so I got to attend a creative ops conference in NYC for free. The conference just happened to be on our 10 year wedding anniversary so I brought Lucas along. Ironically, Lucas had previously suggested we celebrate our anniversary by spending a weekend in NY but we didn’t follow through with it because NY is so expensive to visit and it would be hard to do the trip in just 2 days. Since my trip was paid for (hotel, food, Lyfts, flight), all we had to cover for this dreamy date was Lucas’ flight and food, and his mom’s flight to Oregon to take care of the kids.
We stayed near Times Square n a hotel that had a small but beautiful rooftop where they served food every morning and evening. We both worked during the day, him at the hotel and me at the conference / co-working space, and spent the evenings watching broadway shows and eating late night pizza or croissants.
One night when we were walking through Times Square we stopped to watch some street performers. We couldn’t stay to watch because they were coming through the crowd bringing all the “tall white guys” (their words) to the front to be props in their next stunt. Lucas tried to crouch but they started coming his way so we ran away 🙂
We booked tickets the first night for a show called “Goodnight Oscar” because it was a limited-time option and the main character was played by someone on Lucas’ favorite podcast “Smartless.” We’re glad we went because the performance was great. This was the first broadway show I attended that wasn’t a musical. Because our bodies were still on Pacific Time while we were there, we would go to a show, then be hungry for dinner after so we got a slice of pizza, ate while we walked, and found another treat on the way home.
At one point I saw a sign that said Shucked, a brand new musical, was “the funniest show since Book of Mormon”. We hadn’t planned on seeing two shows but we had time on night two and we were in the mood to laugh so we got tickets. It was incredible! A joke every 15 seconds and impressive vocalists. One of the performers won an Emmy for their performance in Shucked a few weeks after we got home. (I’m writing this post in July although I dated this in May). It’s not often you get to witness a performance so good it gets a standing ovation so we felt grateful to be there.
In the past when we have gone on trips without our kids the trip is structured like a vacation. This trip felt like we were living our lives just in a different place without kids because we were still working during the day but we had the flexibility to wake up on our time (not Tenny’s 5:30 am wake up call) and run around in the evenings.
On night two, we had dinner with my coworker who came to NYC for the conference. After dinner we had to rush back to the hotel to put my backpack away so we could get to the theater to see Shucked. Lucas surprised me with a jewelry box. He had gone to Utah for work a few weeks before and while he was there he bought me two new rings to add to my right hand stack. He bought them from the same store we got our wedding rings from. I usually know everything he buys because I manage our finances. But we recently got a new credit card for Lucas to put work expenses on so he bought the rings on that card and I had absolutely NO idea. It was the sweetest surprise. I’ve worn the rings every day since.
An agency I brought on to work with LegalZoom sponsored one of the sessions at the creative ops conference and asked me to help present so I got to answer questions on a panel during the conference. The agency was very prepared and prepped each panelist well so it all worked out smoothly and was fun to participate in. And it was a good excuse to buy a new outfit 🙂
Instead of flying home Friday morning, we opted for an early evening flight so we could run around and do touristy things on Friday. We started with the immersive experience at SUMMIT One Vanderbilt then walked along the Brooklyn Bridge. I bought 3 toys from a vendor on the bridge – school bus, mail truck, and subway train car. The kids loved them all, but Tenny especially loves the “underground train toy.”
There were many times during the trip when Lucas and I would say, “this is the perfect trip.” It was the perfect combo of work and fun and felt like an extended date night. Since we only do date night twice a year the experience was cherished.
Random follow up. On the flight back I got an email saying I won an iPad Pro from one of the vendors at the conference. I remember thinking, “could this trip get any better?”
The conference I attended happens every May in NYC so I’m already seeing what I can do to make this an annual work trip 🙂